


Sweet-Lipped Misery

by VermilionHorizons



Category: Six of Crows Series - Leigh Bardugo
Genre: F/M, M/M, Original Characters - Freeform, Set 30/40 years after Crooked Kingdom, more about the long-term effects of the end of Crooked Kingdom than the Crows themselves, soft!adult crows, uh oh, uh oh it’s sad
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-25
Updated: 2020-04-07
Packaged: 2021-01-03 02:28:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 5,150
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21171926
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VermilionHorizons/pseuds/VermilionHorizons
Summary: Rhetta Rietveld is a legend in the Barrel.She’s a tidal wave of entertainment, the proprietor of the Crow Club, and the queen of the wickedest criminals in Ketterdam. Nothing can phase her.Or so she thought.Her brother returns to Ketterdam after swearing he was never coming back, she has debts to pay that she wasn’t aware of, but worst of all -rumour has it there’s a Rollins back on the streets, and he wants blood.





	1. Ashur Returns

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first published fanfiction, based off this daydream I couldn’t get out of my head. I hope everyone enjoys!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is my first published fanfiction, based off this daydream I couldn’t get out of my head. I hope everyone enjoys!

The young man was a foreigner. This was plain and obvious as he walked through the docks. He strode upright, with excellent posture, and cast curious glances at the sights and sounds around him. He had been here before, but the locals didn’t know that. They stopped and stared at him when Kerch spilled from his lips like water. He spoke so well, they replied, and with a native accent, too - a criminal one, they did not add.

“How’d you get Kerch so good?” Asked one of the immigration officials.  
“My father,” he responded. “He is Kerch. I learnt from him.”  
“Is that so?” He checked the document in his hand. “Oh yes, ‘Rietveld’. That’s a good Kerch name.”  
“Who was your mother, though, boy? Some Suli whore?” laughed another officer. 

“No. She was not.” The young man’s features hardened into severity, and the officer could have sworn he felt a cold hand clutch around his neck. “No. Sorry. That wasn’t polite of me, Mr. Rietveld,” agreed the officer. 

The young man took his papers back from the officials and began towards the heart of Ketterdam. He had missed this grey, sorry city a little, he considered. Nowhere else was the air so bleak and the streets so filthy. It was twisted and disgusting for the most part, but there was a small bit of it that Ashur recognised as himself. This was his city - well, one of them anyway. He had spent summers sweating here in the grimy heat, retraining his tongue to make the strange, lyricless syllables of his father’s language so he could talk to the pretty girls who cast sly grins at him in the corner of his eye. Yes, it was good to be back. But it would never be as lovely without her. That was the truth. 

He shoved the thought to the back of his mind. There were happier things to dwell on - the Church of Barter still stood strong. He knelt upon the steps to mumble a prayer, but his eyes returned to the sky each time he pulled his gaze away. The spires still glinted in the afternoon sun, as they had done when he had climbed them with Mama. 

He had been 13 then, just starting to figure out the sort of man his father was, and Mama had dragged him away from the Slat for the afternoon to avoid another argument. He worked out later that Mama had been pregnant with Vikjar then, but he wouldn’t have believed it even if she had told him herself at the time. Mama was just as sure of step there, pregnant and halfway to the heavens, as she was on the ground. Rooftops held no mystery for her. The wonder never faded though, she had assured him, and standing among the copper spires of the cathedral, he believed her. How could life be anything other than beautiful when you were the king of the sky? Ashur shook his head. He had been so naive as a child. 

He continued through the city until the buildings became crooked, and then further until the slanted houses gave way to squat, elaborate storefronts with signs that gleamed in every shade of precious gem. He walked on a little further still, until these shops became giants decked out in gaudy fakery and glitz that towered three storeys or more above the street and cast a murky shadow over the debauchery beneath. 

Ashur smiled. Now he was home.


	2. The Slat and The Old King

Ashur paused inside the door to let his eyes adjust to the gloom. The sight revealed to him was the same as it had been when he had left. It was as if life had simply stood still for the past years, and now that he had returned, was moving once more, just for him. 

There was an old bar with chair and tables laid out before it, smudges of alcohol and saints-knew what on every surface. And it was so hot as well. He undid his coat buttons. Pipe smoke fog hung thick in the air, and a handful of men around his age sat round a back table playing three man bramble. A smile brushed his lips at that - some people can never get enough of the cards, be they dealing on the job or playing off it. 

He began towards the door in the corner and a few of the gamblers glanced briefly in his direction. He was a sight, definitely - tall, slim, delicately muscled, with a face fitted with deep Suli eyes and the angular face of the Kerch. However, here in the Barrel he didn’t stick out quite as much - there were plenty of non-Kerch or half-Kerch Barrel rats, and a good many of them were members of the Dregs. Ashur had known most of them by name before it had happened. 

There had been Zhao, a Shu brawler, Endiri with her broad Zemeni accent, Cait, the light-fingered Kaelish girl who had learned her trade from the best of the worst. And they were just been the ones he had been close to. There had been more, but Ashur didn’t want to think for too long about what might have happened to them since. Dwelling on things got you killed in the Barell, if the disease didn’t snuff you out first. Anyway, he recognised none of the players. They didn’t seem to recognise him either. That was okay with Ashur. He liked it best when he left nothing to remember. And he was very, very good at that, unusual appearance or no. 

“Sorry, son, you can’t go in there.” Ashur felt a hand press into his shoulder. A face squinted at him from above. “Hey... Who even are you, anyway?”  
“My name is Ashur Rietveld,” he replied, extracting his arm from the stranger’s grip. “I want to see my uncle.”  
“Mister Brekker? Fat-chance!”  
Ashur tilted his chin up and narrowed his eyes, less in anger and more in imitation. It worked.  
“Oh... Wait, I can see the resemblance.” The man knocked on the office door. 

“Boss, there’s someone here to see you. An Ashur Rietveld who’s says you’re his uncle.”  
A sound like someone falling off a chair came from behind the door.  
“Send him in, Brux.”  
“Sure thing, boss.” The bruiser reached for the door handle, then paused. 

“Hey, you ain’t...” A flicker glimmered in his eye, a rumour half-remembered.  
“I ain’t from round these parts, if that’s what you were wondering,” said Ashur, and opened the door himself. 

He was barely in the room before he was crushed in a hug.  
“I thought you were never coming back.”  
“I wasn’t.”  
“What changed, then?”  
“I got lonely.”  
His father released him and stood before him, Kaz Brekker, Dirtyhands, Boss of the Dregs, King of the Barrel, The Scourge of Ketterdam, and all his father. 

Kaz laughed. “I need to fire my spider. He can hardly tell me the dirtiest secrets of the Merch council if he can’t tell me when my own son is in Ketterdam.”  
“Or your nephew, as you would prefer people to believe. Still, I suppose nephew is better than son-of-a-friend, and what was the first one? “Random street urchin that I’ve taken under my wing”? As if anyone would believe that.” Ashur smiled as his father stalked back to his desk in shame.  
“I do it for y-”  
“For my own safety, yes, I know. And don’t fire the spider. I wouldn’t want anyone getting fired on my account.”  
“Gundt isn’t a patch on your mother.”  
“No one is patch on Mama, you said so yourself.”  
“That’s right.” His father’s face wrinkled up in pride and a faint colour brushed his cheeks. “Have you seen her yet?” 

“How would I have seen Mama? I’ve heard she still spends half her time on rooftops, even though the doctor said it wasn’t good for her back. I was hoping you would have seen her, Pa.”  
“She’s out at the moment. Visiting Wylan and Jesper, I think. She’ll be back soon, so there’s no point in going there.”  
Ashur raised an eyebrow. “Not even to see my uncles?”  
“They’re still as fucking artsy and sickeningly romantic as they were when you left, Ashur. Nothing changed while you were away.” 

“What about Vikjar?”  
“At home with Constance or clerking in the Exchange. I don’t know these days, I don’t have to know because he’s not a damn fool anymore.”  
“Fair enough. I won’t see him ‘til tomorrow anyway, I couldn’t stand sitting through Constance singing at me this late in the evening.”  
Kaz chuckled. “I second that. I only tolerate her because Vikjar would never speak to me if I didn’t. Otherwise, she’d be top of my list of people to arrange a little ‘accident’ for.” 

A cold silence filled the air. Ashur had gone very still. 

“That was too close to home. I’m sorry, son.”  
“It’s okay,” Ashur managed to croak in response. “It wasn’t your fault, Pa.” He stood for a few seconds, barely breathing, before he recovered himself. 

“Where’s Rhetta?”  
“The usual place.”  
Ashur buttoned his coat. “I’m going to see my sister, then.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was a fun chapter to write! I reckon Kaz would probably become a bit nicer in his old age, but still retain a bit of nastiness to use when he needs it, so that’s how I wrote him. 
> 
> The next chapter is such a treat! (Will upload it soon when I’m completely happy with it.)
> 
> (Also, if you can see two end-of-chapter notes boxes like I can??? I don’t know why that’s happening either, oh well.)


	3. Queen of the Hungry

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ashur visits his sister; a soured reunion takes place.

Rhetta Rietveld was a whirlwind. She smiled at all her customers and gave advice to the tourists and kept the dealers clean, all at the same time. It was ridiculous, in all honesty. She was almost offensively dressed as a caricature of a mercher’s wife, in a black dress choked with lace at every hem and a massive, gaudy diamanté securing an ever bigger cravat to her breast. She would have been the target of many a man and woman’s affections - if it wasn’t for the pearl-handled revolver that rested snug to her hip. 

She hadn’t changed a bit. 

Ashur sat down at the bar and ordered a glass of kvas and rum. His drink was about as good quality as you could get in a Barrel gambling den, but that hardly mattered. You came to the Barrel for a show, not to spend your money wisely. And the Crow Club provided quite the show. 

Pa had given Rhetta the run of the place as a birthday gift. Her 17th, to be exact, the very same which had profited her famous revolver from Uncle Jesper. Rhetta had done it all up in the five years since. Ashur chuckled, remembering how angry Pa had been when she had told him that she was having the centre of the floor ripped out to put in a crow fountain. He had raged about how much effort and expense he had poured into the very oakwood floor Rhetta was ripping out. But Rhetta? She merely smiled her best daughter-dearest smile and reminded him that it was hers now, and that had been the end of it. 

The fountain itself was a sight. The crow’s massive wings were fully outstretched, ready to take flight, and in its greedy beak it hoarded pearl necklaces and rubies and wad upon wad of banknotes (all of them real, but the customers didn’t need to know that). It was a slight in plain sight, but none of the customers ever made the connection. That was the part Rhetta liked best. None of them got that the lively young woman in black was the crow, and their wallets were all her pretty treasures. 

It was a lively night tonight, Ashur noted with a quiet satisfaction. He could see Zemeni and Fjerdan, and the worst kind of Kerch - the ones who should know better, but never learn - and there were two tables packed ten-chairs-a-piece with Shu. Rhetta stood with them now, ushering serving girls forward with different bottles of whiskey for them to sample, charming them with some of the pleasant phrases she had learned in Shu. Her accent was far from perfect, but it drew smiles from the Shu and loosened their purse strings, and that was all Rhetta wanted. 

Ashur stood up and walked over to the tables. He bowed to the seated Shu.   
“Da buhd oroin ku loo dej baigaa yuu?”   
They laughed and responded (in Kerch) that yes, they were having a nice evening. But that hardly mattered. Rhetta was staring at him as if she’d seen a ghost. 

“Ashur? Is that really you?”   
“Yes.”   
“I thought you were never coming back.”   
“I wasn’t, but I changed my mind.” He reached for her hand. “I missed my baby sister.” She grinned.   
“Just give me a minute and I’ll talk to you in the back room.” Rhetta snapped her fingers at a girl behind the bar. “Gerdy, make sure these customers are given whatever they ask for.”   
“Yes, ma’am.”   
“Come on, Ashur,” she said, steering him through the crowd to the door under the stairs. 

“Those seemed like generous customers. Are you sure you want to leave them with someone else?”   
“Of course. Well, I’d only leave them with Gerdy. She’s my best member of staff. A little too good, if you ask me,” she whispered. “Give me a second to unlock the door... In you go!” 

Ashur emerged into a low-ceilinged room lit by an immense chandelier. He had a dim recollection of this room from a long time ago, but Rhetta had left her mark here as well. It was different to how he remembered.   
“Sit down, brother.” She gestured to a seat by the desk. “When did you get in?”   
“Today. Just this afternoon. You’re the second person I’ve seen.”   
“Only the second?” Rhetta raised an eyebrow jokingly.   
“I know, I know, I should have seen the famous Rhetta Rietveld first. But I didn’t, so there. I saw Pa first.” He faltered. “Is that rouge on your cheeks?”   
“It is.”  
“Since when do you do that?”   
“Since Aunt Nina taught me that life could be incredibly exciting once I stopped listening to Pa and Mama all the time. Plus, people are suddenly a lot more willing to do what’s asked of them when a pretty young lady is doing the asking.”   
“Does that mean that you have - ahem - a young man in your life?”  
“Of course not,” snorted Rhetta. “I may push Pa and Mama to their limits, but I don’t have a death wish just yet. And anyway, all the ‘young men’ in Ketterdam are either dreadful bores or violent, money-grabbing criminals.”   
“Says you.” Ashur was rewarded with a swift punch in the shoulder. 

“How did you get here?”  
“I paid a passage on a freighter from Os Kervo.”   
“Were you in Os Kervo for long?”   
Ashur paused. “I think the question you were trying to ask was, “How long has it been since you saw Grapi and Grumoj?”, and my answer is a long, long time.”   
Rhetta hung her head. “How long?”   
“Three years, or there about.”   
“Mama won’t be happy to hear that. Or Pa. We all thought you were being a good boy and running in the family circus.” She looked him straight in the eyes, boring into his very soul.

“So what were you doing, these past five years, then?” Rhetta paced around the desk. “Running off not three days after my 17th birthday because of some stupid accident that wasn’t any of our faults, swearing that you were never coming back even when Pa dealt the Pointers got what was coming to them? What were you doing, Ashur? Running around West Ravka? Playing the religious man come to bring morality to the slums? Saints know you did plenty enough of that here.” 

Ashur felt like he’d been slapped. He sat in his chair, absolutely stunned and couldn’t bring himself to speak for a few seconds. He managed to recollect himself enough to murmur: 

“Don’t call Lizbeda’s death a stupid accident, Rhetta.”

Rhetta merely shrugged. “I’ll call it what it was, Ashur. It was a stupid accident. And I won’t apologise for saying it. I’m not aiming to be disrespectful, you know that. You heard my grief enough at her funeral.” She turned her face away to brush something from her eye. “I thought she was going to be my sister. We both did, Vikjar and I.” She looked at him again, her eyes glassy with tears. “I loved her as well. But I moved on. I had to. Ketterdam doesn’t love weakness, but I love Ketterdam. And you used to as well. But you couldn’t stand that a world still existed where she wasn’t alive, so you pushed the world away.

“So while you were looking to turn back time, I was becoming a businesswoman. I stopped being Raji Ghafa, granddaughter of farmers and penny-bit acrobats, and became Rhetta Rietveld, Queen of the Hungry.

“I became legend, Ashur. What did you become?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just google translated and reworked a phrase for the Shu, hmph.   
Rhetta putting down the Ghafa name? I’m not hating on Inej, there’s a character reason behind this! 
> 
> What could possibly go wrong next in this story? I wonder...


	4. A Last Hurrah

Vikjar was going to fucking piss himself. 

Today had been difficult. He had spent the morning shouting at his drunken colleague, Sander, for losing the finance ledger. Then a ship from the Southern Colonies had brought a new shipment of sugar. The Exchange had erupted into chaos: screaming, yelling, a copious amount of cursing, all the dramatics of trade. He had seen a clerk in an office opposite beating two runners who had arriving at the ship too late to put through the purchases. He had heard their cries for mercy from across the courtyard. They rung in his ears still. And then he had had to leave The Exchange and walk halfway across Ketterdam to his house, one of the smaller houses in the southern most residential area in Ketterdam. It was a long walk, through the muck of the streets and the biting sea winds that rattled the city, and it never put Vikjar in a good mood. 

And now this. The whole damn family - and a few more besides - all glaring at Constance’s attempts at entertainment in the front room. 

“Victor, my love!” Constance raced across the room and embraced him. Vikjar saw his mother stiffen slightly at the use of the Kerch version of his name. Hardly anyone used it. He was just Vikjar. But the Suli stuck in Constance’s throat and came out uncomfortably mangled, so exceptions could be made. Just for her. 

“Constance.” He returned her embrace, then nodded stiffly at each relation in turn.  
“Pa, Mama, Uncle Jes, Uncle Wylan, Rhetta...” He blinked and looked again. And again. He was still there. How was this possible?  
“Ashur?”  
His brother smiled. “It’s good to see you again, Vikjar.” Ashur stood and embraced him. He smelt of ocean and rust and the dusty places in libraries. He smelt like home. Vikjar was sure he was dreaming. “Why is he here?” he mouthed to Rhetta over Ashur’s shoulder. “I don’t know,” she responded. “But he’s not-”and then his view of Rhetta was cut off by Ashur releasing him and straightening up. 

They looked alike. They always had, but Ashur was hard and lean where Vikjar was soft and well-fed. Ashur’s hair reached his eyebrows and a week’s stubble cast his chin into shadow. He looked so old. He was old, of course he was - he was his older brother, and nearly, well, probably around thirty now. But it was more than that. Grief had ravaged him, set his eyes deep in their sockets, the skin looser on his bones. And yet he still seemed so ordinary, forgettable - another worn man in a crowd of weary figures. Vikjar had never been that. He spoke in an upper-class way but used Barrel slang; he wore black suits with gaudy crimson ties; he was plain, well-settled, but surrounded by the powers of the city - both of the merchers and of the thieves. He was Ashur in a different existence, one where life had been easy for him. 

“Your wife was entertaining us, brother,” attempted Ashur, but ‘entertaining’ came out slightly strained.  
“Yes. She is a delight,” added Inej. Normally, she was happy enough to talk with Constance. Today, however, Constance seemed to have done a bit too much talking for everyone.  
“She truly is,” muttered Jesper. Wylan nudged him. Wylan was fond of Constance. They got along well. In fact, it had been Wylan who had introduced her to Vikjar. Yes, Wylan had befriended thugs and thieves and ne’erdowells, but Vikjar suspected that he was always secretly relieved to be able to talk to someone about art and music. And talk they did - they could prater on for hours. Constance was from a notable old family that dealt in singing and the kind of upper-class dramas the rich favoured over the Komedie Brute of the streets. She was excellent at both of these talents, but had decided that a life spent on the stage would be too relentless. Instead, she had become a clerk. In Vikjar’s opinion, clerking wasn’t any less relentless, but it made her happy and she was good at it, so no one really minded. Unfortunately, she had never forgotten the thrill of having an audience, which led to many scenes like the one Vikjar saw before him. 

“I didn’t know you had a brother, my love. He’s awfully charming,” said Constance.  
“Yes, I do.” A thick silence settled over the room like a storm cloud. “But I’m afraid we grew up rather separately and have not had much contact as adults.”  
“What a terrible thing to say to your brother!” she cried.  
“No, no, he is quite correct,” replied Ashur. “We were born in different circumstances.” Vikjar saw his parents shift uncomfortably in the corner of his eye. “We have lived quite different lives. But,” he said, clapping Vikjar on the shoulder, “that doesn’t mean that we aren’t brothers.” 

Everyone in the room visibly relaxed. Kaz and Inej were smiling, hands clasped gently between them. Vikjar grinned. It has taken them a lifetime to get here, for us to get here: a happy, normal family. And what a lovely sight it was: Rhetta leant against their parents; Jesper’s arm wrapped round Wylan’s shoulder; Vikjar’s darling Constance beside him, their arms linked. 

All was as it should be. 

“What about dinner now?” Inej suggested.  
“There’s no dinner here, Mama,” replied Vikjar.  
“I know,” said Inej, “but your uncles very kindly made dinner for us all at the mansion.”  
“I think you mean the servants made dinner, Inej,” laughed Jesper.  
“Saints know neither of you can cook,” grumbled Kaz, and Vikjar saw his mother squeeze Kaz’s hand in warning. She didn’t scold him, though, Vikjar noted pleasedly. The times his father conceded to reference his mother’s religion were few and far between, and every one a quiet victory for Inej. Age had made him soft, she often said, and each time he would reply, “No, Inej. You’ve made me soft.” It was funny. Life always turned out for the best in the end. His parents were proof of it. 

So, as the eight of them strolled out of one of the smaller houses in the southernmost residential area in Ketterdam, they were all happy. Let them savour it. It had taken every second of the lives they had lived so far for this moment to come to pass. 

And for one of them, that life was soon to come to a bitter end.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :) 
> 
> The next chapter... I’m going to feel quite evil writing it.


	5. The Voice Behind the Door

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It’s alive! I’ll probably update more frequently now because I’m stuck at home because of quarantine/isolation/lockdown, whatever you want to call it.

The boy moved through the streets without a sound. He was going to enjoy this. He had waited his whole life for this, ever since he sat on his grandfather’s knee, listening to the sound of the streets in a country far, far away from Emerald Isle. He was going to put things to rights.

It was time.

———

Rhetta had had a tolerable evening. The meal had been fit for a connoisseur, as meals at the mansion always were, and Uncle Jesper had joked and even got Uncle Wylan up to dance, much to the cheers of the gathered company. But she couldn’t remember what else had taken place - it was all cast in the shadow of Ashur’s return. Constance had probably sung, and Vikjar had probably played the piano in accompaniment. Her parents had done a lot of smiling, she thought, and at one point Pa had lent her his pocket watch. But what for? She had no idea. All she could remember from the dinner was Ashur’s amiable silence, his quiet chuckles. That he had been there, really there, older than he had been, still living. He had even looked in better health than he had when he lived in Ketterdam. Back then, he almost always had a black eye or broken finger from his attempts to spread the Saints among the positively un-saintly.

Rhetta stretched and began to remove the hairpins from her bun. The streets outside her room were so quiet that she could hear water lapping against the banks of the canal. Silence was a blessing, a safety away from the hussle and bustle of the Crow Club. She pulled a chair out form under the small tea-table in the corner and sat down to unlace her boots. Her feet ached. It had been a long day, as all days were for her. Rich, she was indeed, but money couldn’t buy back the time distributed among her her customer and minions. She undid the leather belt fastened around her waist, pulling it out through the belt loops, then reached for the enamel buttons behind the collar of the dress. They loosened their grasp on her neck with soft _pops_ as each in turn gave way.

Rhetta set about the rest of the task of undressing in silence, her actions automatic and seamless. She lifted the weighty black dress over her head once she was finished and flung it in the rough direction of the chair, reaching for her nightgown before it had even touched the chair arm. It hit the wood with a curious metallic _thump_. Rhetta paused. She padded over to the the chair and rummaged through the folds of the dress until she brought out Pa’s pocket watch. It was burnished gold with the numbers inlaid in silver, a weighty thing that filled her palm. She had forgotten to return it.

Rhetta shrugged on her dressing gown and stepped out into the carpeted corridor, the floorboards beneath protesting at each step. She crossed the main landing, Ma’s study, the Amber Sitting Room, until she was outside Pa’s study. The door handle was cool in her grasp, easily turning - but then she heard the voice.

It was a voice that Rhetta would remember for the rest of her days: young, male... and sick with rage. It snarled out at her from behind the door,

“Kaz Fucking Brekker is it?”

“Who’s asking, podge?” came her father’s reply. There was that edge to it, the one that came out when a job went wrong, or when someone had disobeyed him. The one that said there was a storm brewing.

“No one that you’d know, Mr. Brekker, and that’s exactly why I’ve got a problem with you.”

Rhetta heard a chair scrape against the floor as Kaz stood up.

“Who sent you?”

“I sent myself, Mr. Brekker,” simpered the reedy little voice.

Kaz laughed in a way that was less a laugh, more the sound of steel screeching against steel. “Tell Esmaeker he’s not getting the money back.”

“Esmaeker? Money? My, my, Mr. Brekker,” murmured the voice. “You must be going senile. Seems even a king can lose his crown.”

“Tell me your business or I’ll send you right back out the way you came,” snarled Kaz.

“Through the open window?” The voice barked an unsteady chuckle. “Seems they were wrong about you, Mr. Brekker. You say you’re a better man now, more moral, whatever, but it seems no amount of charity and family-man living can beat the violent streak out of you. And that brings me to my business.” The speaker inhaled and when he spoke once more, his pent-up fury seemed to unravel into a greater fiend, dark thunderclouds over Ketterdam.

“What does the name Rollins mean to you?”

Rhetta’s forehead creased as she tried to recall where she had heard that name.It was unfamiliar, and yet... But her father’s silence spoke volumes. After a long pause, he responded:

“What does it mean to you, stripling?” 

“I asked you first, crowface.”

Footsteps paced up and down the floorboards.

“Pekka Rollins. He was a Barrel boss. Long before you were born, thirty years ago or more. Ran off one day and his gang dissolved not long after.”

The voice jeered. “Don’t give me that, Brekker. A bunch of old gang tales?” The voice laughed. “I know he means more to you than that just from looking at you. I can see it, y’know - the way your jaw stiffens, your eyebrows draw in.” The voice continued, so quietly that Rhetta had to press her ear to the door to hear. “The way that name make your blood boil.”

“Enough,” crackled her father’s voice. “Tell me who you are.”

“Oh, enough indeed,” sneered the response. A second later came Kaz’s sharp intake of breath, then clatter of a locked drawer trying to be opened.

“Don’t bother, Mr. Brekker. I locked it while you and your _darling little family_ were at dinner.” Rhetta began to panic, her mind conjuring horrible images of the scene behind the door. But no... Pa always had a trick up his sleeve.

Then came Kaz’s measured response. “Tell me who you are.” It was the tone of a man who had lost.

“My name is Donal Rollins.”

A gunshot.

A scream -  


Her father’s scream. 

“I’ve come to take every _fucking_ penny from you, every single thing you love.”

Rhetta heard her father’s groan through the door. Tears shattered through her paralysis.

“And when it is the lion that rises tomorrow morning in place of the crow, you will know that all debts have been settled in blood.”

The voice laughed.

“Except _you_ won’t know that. You’ll be dead. All most makes it a shame to kill you.”

The gun went off again. Rhetta shuddered with the impact, at the sound of the air leaving her father’s lungs for the last time. She heard the window being drawn upwards, boots stopping against the floor as their wearer jumped onto the sill, the sound of the window shutting. She choked back a sob and forced herself to focus on the facts: her father had been shot. Her finally-complete family had been blown apart with that shot. That she had a new enemy by the name of Donal Rollins.

Rhetta set the watch against the door, standing shakily, and set off for her room. She rummaged through her wardrobe - looking for what, exactly, she could not say. Her hands brought out wooden shawls and dresses, a silver pendant to be sold, fastened her boots to her feet. She blinked, and then she was on the street outside, smothered by the mist off the harbour in the low moon.

For once, she did not have any ideas to get out of this mess.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ;)
> 
> Also, I am seriously considering participating in the Grishaverse Big Bang over on Tumblr, so I may be making a Tumblr blog for my writing soon! Stay tuned if you’re interested :)

**Author's Note:**

> (I have written the Rietveld siblings as biological siblings, but after reading some people’s perspectives on Kaz and Inej’s relationship, I understand that this is potentially unrealistic and/or harmful, so I’ll try to leave it vague so you can read them as adopted children if you want to.)


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